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Futures @Lancaster

Futures @Lancaster
Global Futures
John Urry Lecture
Anticipation Conference 2024
Lancaster Campus

Futures @Lancaster

Futures @Lancaster are a series of panel discussions held at Lancaster. If you would like to take part and engage with the panel discussions, please email researchinstitutes@lancaster.ac.uk

Futures work at Lancaster 2

The second in the series of panel discussions reflecting on which theoretical, methodological and practical questions does the future pose as an object of study, speculation, research, and practice. This panel featured the recent work of the Plastic Packaging in People's Lives (PPiPL) team.

  • The Little Book of Plastics in Everyday Life (2022)

This Little Book is co-authored by the Plastic Packaging in People's Lives (PPiPL) team (www.lancaster.ac.uk/ppipl): James Cronin, Maria Piacentini, Alex Skandalis, John Hardy, Alison Stowell, Charlotte Hadley, Savita Verma, Linda Hendry, Marta Ferri, and Matteo Saltalippi. Its purpose is to provide a holistic but condensed overview of the key aspects of plastics as they are produced, consumed and disposed of in contemporary consumer culture. We centre attention notjust on the materiality of plastics but also on their meanings and how they come to be experienced and lived with in daily life.

plastic fork
Futures work at Lancaster 1

Futures work at Lancaster 1

First on the series of panel discussions reflecting on which theoretical and methodological questions does the future poseas an object of study, speculation, research, and practice. This panel featured three recent books authored by Lancaster academics:

  • Routledge Handbook of Social Futures (2002), edited by Carlos López Galviz and Emily Spiers

Featuring chapters from an international range of leading and emerging scholars, this Handbook provides a collection of cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that sheds new light on contemporary futures studies.

  • Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences (2021) by Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szerszynski

Anthropocene science proposes that human activity is tipping the whole Earth system into a new state, with unpredictable consequences.

  • Future Cities: A Visual Guide (2020) by Nick Dunn and Paul Cureton

This book examines how cities of the future have been visualised, what these projects sought to communicate and what the implications may be for us now. It provides a visual history of the future and explores the relationships between different visualisation techniques and ideologies for cities.